Five killed in separate attacks in Burundi: Police

BUJUMBURA, Burundi

Three Burundian police officers and two civilians were killed Sunday night in separate attacks, security and administrative sources have told Anadolu Agency.

According to local security sources, the police officers were killed by unidentified gunmen while on duty outside a municipal high school in Cibitoke, a city located north of Bujumbura. 

“The three officers died on the spot while others were injured and taken to hospital,” Venerend Nzikobanyanka, administrative advisor of the Cibitoke commune, told Anadolu Agency.

Meanwhile, a resident of Bubanza, a city located northwest of the capital, was killed – and his wife seriously injured – when unidentified assailants attacked their home with grenades, police officer Jerome Ndayirukiye told Anadolu Agency.

The same source also reported that the body of a middle-aged woman had been found on Monday in Bujumbura’s Buringa neighborhood.

“The victim, Apolline Hakizimana, a mother of four, was beheaded and her tongue cut off,” Ndayirukiye said.

The spate of murders follows the death on Sunday of General Adolphe Nshimirimana, a former Burundian army chief-of-staff and intelligence chief who was assassinated by unknown assailants in the capital’s Kamenge district.

Since demonstrations erupted in April against President Pierre Nkurunziza – who won a third term as president in July 21 polls widely boycotted by the opposition – over 100 people have reportedly been killed across Burundi in simmering political violence.